CAPE TOWN November 7 — Sapa

HAIN WANTS TRC TO INVESTIGATE BANK THEFT "FRAME"

Veteran anti-apartheid campaigner and British Labour Party MP Peter Hain wants to ask the Truth Commission to investigate whether the South African Security Services framed him for a 1976 bank theft.

He will arrive in Cape Town on Friday as a guest of the African National Congress to take part in a workshop at Groot Constantia for ANC parliamentary whips, a statement released in Cape Town on Thursday says.

From there he goes on to Johannesburg to promote his book, Sing The Beloved Country: The Struggle For The New South Africa, which was launched in the South African High Commission in London on Wednesday.

In 1972 he received a letter bomb, defused by the British bomb squad, which he says was sent him by the Bureau for State Security (BOSS). He was also prosecuted in an SA-sponsored civil trial for conspiracy and acquitted.

In 1975, he was charged with the theft of 490 pounds from Barclays Bank, Putney, west London. He was subsequently tried in 1976 and acquitted in a case of mistaken identity. However, he says he had evidence accumulated over the years to show he was framed by BOSS which is contained in his book.

"The Truth and Reconciliation Commission offers me the opportunity finally to learn the whole truth about how BOSS framed me for a bank theft which I did not commit, so I am asking the TRC to investigate this case and get all the facts into the open," he said.


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